Through the past darkly: Reflections on UFC on FUEL TV 10

Seems as though whatever brand of magic it is that flows through Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira‘s veins when he fights in Brazil doesn’t work on fellow Brazilians.

Or, since our sample size is still too small to draw any firm conclusions, maybe it just doesn’t work on Fabricio Werdum.

If you’re one of those people who can barely be troubled to watch “The Ultimate Fighter” when it’s in English (*discreetly raises hand*), and so spent the better part of the past year wondering if Werdum had renounced professional violence and gone off to live in a monastery, consider Saturday night’s UFC on FUEL TV 10 main event your reminder. “Vai Cavalo” is still here, and he’s still pretty damned good.

The question is, how good? Because I’m not sure his win over Nogueira gave us much of an answer.

That’s not a knock on “Big Nog.” He might sometimes walk like the Tin Man when he’s outside the cage, but once his foot hits that mat he’s still a dangerous fighter with plenty of tricks up his sleeve. What he’s not, at least these days, is an elite heavyweight. Werdum should beat the Big Nogs of the MMA world. He should even be able to submit them, if that’s the way he chooses to go with it. Seeing him do it with such apparent ease was impressive, but it didn’t necessarily tell us anything about him that we didn’t already know.

Can Werdum do the same thing to the few men who are actually above him in the ranks? Can he take down the heavyweights who have better takedown defense than Nogueira, or stand with the ones who are quicker and more powerful on their feet? That’s the part we don’t know yet. That’s the part we won’t know until he fights the cream of the UFC’s heavyweight crop.

It should come as no surprise that Werdum is now talking about a title shot, maybe even after another “TUF” coaching gig. That makes some sense. The title shot part, I mean. For purely selfish reasons, I’d rather not see the heavyweight title languish in reality TV purgatory while they film yet another season of “TUF,” which at this point seems to almost guarantee that the two original coaches won’t fight when they’re supposed to. Werdum shouldn’t want that either. Not after the extended hiatus caused by the most recent one.

Watching him fight now, you know he’s got skills. You also know he’s on the wrong side of 30 to be acting like he’s got all the time in the world to make those skills count for something. If Werdum is going to go from good to great, it probably has to happen soon. It won’t be too long until he shows up to a fight with a bigger, younger, faster opponent who grew up watching him. Then he’ll know how Nogueira felt.

It was the rivalry that only one person seemed to understand. But then, maybe only one person needed to.

After knocking out Rafael Cavalcante in the first round, Thiago Silva admitted that his pre-fight “provocations” were partly to get the fans fired up, and also partly to get himself in the right frame of mind. That second part is a little surprising, since Silva has always struck me as the type of guy who doesn’t need much of a reason to want to punch someone in the face. Back when he was still with American Top Team, I recall seeing one particularly brutal sparring session between Silva and Luiz Cane that left me wondering whether Cane had insulted Silva’s mother when I wasn’t looking. He’s just that type of fighter: mean, with a side of downright nasty.

Of course, now that he’s put himself back on the mat with a brutal knockout that netted him $100,000 in bonuses, we must wait to find out whether his post-fight drug test will allow him to collect. That’s not the kind of thing you want hanging over your head if you’re Silva, especially if you’ve just scored a big win over a respected opponent like “Feijao.” If only there was a way he could provoke himself into providing a clean urine sample …

An emotional “TUF” finale win … for a “TUF” competitor who already lost

There was something endearing about watching Leonardo Santos jump out of the cage following his submission win over William Macario and go looking for UFC featherweight champ Jose Aldo, who had already jumped out of his seat and gone looking for Santos. When they finally found one another, the embrace they shared reminded us all that this isn’t the individual sport we sometimes imagine it to be. Aldo was right there cheering his teammate on and, according to our own John Morgan, who was on the scene in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, shouting instructions from his cageside seat.

That’s some great sports drama, but it’s a little hard to buy into the usual “TUF”-makes-dreams-come-true storyline when you know the show’s winner was technically eliminated from the competition earlier in the season. Santiago Ponzinibbio beat Santos in the tournament’s semifinal round, but an injury derailed his chance to win the whole thing. It’s not the first time we’ve seen injuries reshape a “TUF” finale – a similar thing happened on the first season of “TUF: Brazil,” as a matter of fact – but it does chip away at whatever mystique is still left for the UFC’s long-running reality series.

We know that winning “TUF” doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be successful in the UFC, or even that you’ll stick around all that long. We also know that you don’t even have to win the tournament in order to, well, win the tournament. What we’ve learned over the years is that winning “TUF” doesn’t mean you’ve made it – it just means you’ve gotten started. I realize that’s a little harder to sell as a reality show concept, but at least it’s honest.

Non-Brazilians who get offered a UFC fight in Brazil might want to think twice

Say you’re a UFC fighter. A stretch to begin with for most of us, but bear with me. Say your phone rings. Say it’s UFC matchmaker Joe Silva, and he want to put you on the next fight card in Brazil. Say you are not Brazilian, but the guy he wants to match you up with is. Here’s where we’d all understand if you suddenly remembered you had a wedding to go to that weekend.

I don’t know if it’s the matchmaking, the southern hemisphere vibe or the fun little “You’re gonna die!” reception from the local crowd, but this was another rough night for out-of-towners. From Jason High‘s submission loss on the main card, all the way down to Anthony Smith‘s gruesome-looking defeat via kneebar on the first fight of the prelims, the foreigners on the card will fly home with bruises and regrets after the UFC’s latest jaunt into Brazil. A couple more nights like these, and the first question fighters ask when they get offered a UFC fight will no longer be “Who?,” but “Where?”